VIA unveils ultra-compact media chip

Eden N and CN400 North Bridge re-packaged

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VIA has integrated its Eden N embedded x86 processor and its CN400 North Bridge into a single package the better to push its products into consumer electronics kit, such as LCD TVs.

The combo chip, known by its codename Luke, joins VIA's CoreFusion line-up. It is clocked at up to 1GHz, at which speed it consumes 7W of power - the lowest of its kind, the company says. Luke incorporates VIA's on-die security engine, PadLock, which is a fast random number generator and AES encryption accelerator. The core contains 64KB of L2 cache.

The processor also supports Intel's MMX and SSE multimedia-oriented instructions. That couples with the CN400's own media-friendly features, including VIA's Vinyl six-channel audio sub-system, AGP 8x for external graphics and a integrated UniChrome Pro graphics core, MPEG 2 and 4 acceleration with motion compensation, and support for two monitors, including DVI, LVDS, TV and CRT.

The North Bridge can connect to 4GB of DDR SDRAM, clocked at 266, 333 or 400MHz.

Customers will still need to connect Luke to a South Bridge, but the combo package takes up 15 per cent less board space than the two cores when packaged separately.